The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-06-26
BABY STARS.
Young Americas Ambition TO Get
Ahead in the World.

Ahead in the World.
NEW York. June 25.-It is a good thing
to pay ones way in the world, and Young
America is coming to do it not infrequently
at a very early age. The Country Week
Association and the Fresh Air Fund may do
their work never so thoroughly, they will
not find il easy to provide any more high
swings. or ha,nmocks. on playthings, or nur-
serv- privileges than a hunured and more
YOUNGSTERS down at Erastina on Staten
Island are commanding forthemselves, with
more or less cash besides. stagetui of
children, dear. little chubby urchins not
vet out of their round-cheeked, round-ltnbed
period Just following babyhood, is one of the
facts which inlpresSes itself on the visitor to
the great spectacle, the Fall of Babylon"
which opened this week, a fact which sug
gests a string of questions to the mind.
Babies. one might think, are stage struck.
There they are. bright-eyed flock of them,
and there they will live all summer long,
appearing on the stage nightly and given
over to the care of a matronly band of nurses
by day. They have been in training for
their summer business for a couple of
months past. They are misunderstanding
little folks with the stage tirsel stripped Off
them. and they seem happy, too. A hard
life for babies maybel And yet there were
600 or more applicants where $50 perhaps
The frequency of the employment of very
Young children on the stage beyond a doubt,
is on the increase. A baby in play hiss
come to be looked on as mascotte, and olee
is often introduced wholly without reason,
simply to bring luck when the child has
nothing to do. like the baby which comes
on in the firt act of separation or the
infant which confines its energies to playing,
with its stage grandfather's watch in Josh
Whitcombn There is something in the
superstition, too, for whenever a child is
upon the stage, for no matter how short
time, it usually enGrosseS the attention and
conqueTs sympathies of at least the feminine
portion of the audience. May Blossom"
was the first play ever produced at the Madl-
son Square which introduced a child, but
since the DAYS of May Blossom the baby
star has multiplied ad infinitum.
But where do they come from2 Some OF
the children are property" urchins, so to
speak, belonging to some member of the
cast and so producible on all necessary oc
casions. Where several are wanted, as in
the first act of Clara Morris Miss Mutton"
to dance on Christmas eve TO the plaudltS OF
a wet-eyed audience or to utter the child
like prattle which never fails to produce its
effect in May Blossom, a manager can al
ways advertise as for anything else concelV-
able on this modern earth. Every theatre
has upon its list of supeS, woman or two
who has a child trained to do juvenile bust
ness on short notice, and at least one of the
dramatic agencies can furnish any number
from one to 100 with no trouble at ali to the
contracting employer. Little folks are easily
enough had from parents who think they
have budding genius in the family, or from
other parents VINO want bread and butter.
And though most of these tiny actors are
employed solely on account OF their childish
beauty, some OF them have more than
childish cleverness too, are well known III
the profession and command salaries of toll
cradle dimensions
Bijou Fernandez is the child actress par ex-
cellence, though IN her recent unique at
tempt to star as q child heroine in a play
written expressly for her, she did not sue
coed especially well Bijou has played in
everything from "TopSy" in Uncle Toms
Cabin" some years ago, to the child parts
of Windsor and 'sMarselle," as presented
by Miss Forsythe's company, the present
season. She has reached an age now when
she ought to leave the stage and go to school
if she is to make mature actress of any
merit by and by.
Other stage children more or less well
known to the play going public are Baby
Woods and the other pages who hold up
Miss Mather's flowing train as Juliet;
the Ogden sisters, who play with Clara Nor
ris; Grace Pauling, who has long standing
engagement with Cora Tanner; little Miss
Chiocchi, who has taken variety of roles;
the two talented children of George H.
Adams, of "Humpty Dumpty" fame; Tom
my Russell, who has played in other roles
besides that of ~ ankn in May Blossom
Mabel Malley in 1.-THE Ivy Leaf, " and young
Walter Van Week, who has appeared as a
very precocious Marks" the lawyer. A
year or so ago this list would not have been
complete without Peggy Miller, the child
in Fritz. but poor Peggy has left the stage
and this earth together.
Nine times out of ten the stage child be-
longs to the more precocious, if not the clev-
erer sex. There are exceptions to the rule,
however. l remember in particular, one
lovely long-haired little boy whose mother
told me one day with mothers pride that
he played in German parts at the Thalia one
week and in English, at the uptown thea
tres the next. He often took a boys part
in the afternoon and girls in the evening,
she said, and though his curlS were getting
heavy and burdensome, she could not afford
to cut them off because to do so would in
stantly reduce his value in the market one
half, since he would be no longer able to con-
ceal successfully his ruder sex.
Little people on the stage sometimes re-
m ain simple and natural, taking the mimic
drama for another phase of real life, like the
child in 'Claudian' who was broken-hearted
stage lightning, supposing him to be really
killed, and sometimes become very critical
little actors, standing in the flies and keep
ing the grown stars well up to the mark
One young lady of 6 or whereabouts, who
has seven by nine part in a queer play
called "Infatuation," always watches the
whole thing through; when any actor
makes slip or misses point she is the first
one to remark it with half-complaining
Neutrality-suspicious., HE didn't do that
right, now, did her She and her kind
learn the tricks of the spoiled actresses.
They want flowers; they stamp and scold
when their small FRANKS fail to elicit the
customary need of laughter, and make peo-
pie very unhappy behind the wings
Does the child actress always become a
grown-up actress of the first rank or does
such an early exposure to stage life tend to
permanent mental stunning! is a question
which it would be hard to answer. Prob
ably the girl who begins her stage life as a
child has i'll life, less nervousness before the
footights than the girl who grew up in a
more usual way, but the latter ought in
most cases to more than make up the differ
ence by her better general education and by
greater power of applcation-perhaps also
by remaining so much longer unspoiled by
fla try. Baby Benson" who made her
FIR l. appparanpn in the t,'Tbrao Hunol,booLe'i